Featured photos

Canada got the last hurrah at the Celebration of Light Saturday evening, closing the three-night event with a winning display. Canada was declared the winner of the event, with Brazil and China finishing second and third, respectively.

WEEKEND EXTRA: NDP Leader Adrian Dix unveiled

The man who wants to be B.C. premier doesn't like talking about himself

B.C. NDP leader and frequent SkyTrain rider Adrian Dix looks as if he could be selling insurance, like his parents. Instead, he’s working hard to return his party to government in the province.

Photograph by: Jenelle Schneider
, PNG

VANCOUVER -- Ken Dix, the father of the leader of B.C.’s New Democratic Party opposition, sold his business and retired last November. He was 81.

That was after spending roughly six decades selling insurance and sometimes real estate, mostly from the family storefront in Kerrisdale.

The father of Adrian Dix had emigrated from Dublin, Ireland, to Sudbury, Ont. in the 1950s, and later met his British-born immigrant wife, Hilda. After moving to Vancouver in 1969, the couple ended up running Dix Insurance Agency Ltd. on West 41st.

Adrian Dix, the 47-year-old B.C. NDP leader, has never sold auto or property insurance. Instead, when he wasn’t executive director of Canadian Parents for French in B.C./Yukon, he has mostly toiled in politics, including as the chief of staff to former premier Glen Clark.

Despite their different career paths, Dix is exceedingly proud of his parents, their commitment to others and their entrepreneurial work ethic.

“My mom and dad struggled and they gave us everything,” said Dix, who was voted leader of the provincial New Democrats in April 2011, six years after winning the MLA seat for Vancouver Kingsway, a riding that is more than 80-per-cent ethnic Asian.

“My brother is a businessman and entrepreneur, living in East Vancouver. He always calls my parents’ business a ‘social agency.’ My dad and mom were very important to their clients. Their clients were their friends and their network and their community.”

Dix attended Point Grey Secondary in the 1980s, which was a block away from the insurance agency and near where the family rented a home.

Even though his immigrants parents never attended university, Dix remains grateful to them and their generation for bringing in what was low-cost higher education. All three Dix offspring attended university.

When he was studying history and political science at University of B.C. in the ’80s, Dix said tuition fees were less than $1,000, and he received a $1,000 grant from the university. Since then, the cost of higher education has soared.

On the ‘charm offensive’

Sitting in a coffee shop in the Vancouver-Kingsway riding, where Dix has lived for decades, it wasn’t difficult to get him talking about social policy. But it took nudging to get him to talk about himself.

That included finding out how he responds to this year’s hard-hitting provincial Liberal TV ads portraying him as a frightening “Risky Dix.”

He appeared to take the ads in stride, as well as Liberal Premier Christy Clark’s comments calling him “very fierce” and “angry.” But he did express shock about the way a major B.C. media outlet referred to him as a “dour Stalinist” after he became NDP leader last April.

“[Josef] Stalin was a mass murderer … a totalitarian leader of the 1930s,” he said, exasperated. “That kind of name calling in politics is bad. There has never been an apology.”

Paradoxically, it wouldn’t be going too far to suggest that during the interview, Dix looked more like he could be selling insurance, like his parents, than ruling as a blood-lusting Soviet dictator.

He was dressed neatly in a dark suit, tie and glasses. His hair was trim, and so is his body, which he tries to keep in shape to battle Type-1 diabetes, which is caused when the pancreas does not provide enough insulin.

Since being diagnosed in his 20s, Dix has had to take four injections of insulin a day; otherwise, he starts to feel shaky. If his blood sugar became too far out of whack, he could go blind.

“It certainly has made me a more disciplined person, by necessity,” he said.

“I think it’s also provided me with some insight into the kinds of challenges many people face.”

Political commentators, among other things, have often remarked on how knowledgeable Dix has been at exposing problems as a passionate health care critic.

Some columnists, such as The Vancouver Sun’s Vaughn Palmer, have also had fun writing about how famously straitlaced Dix sees himself being on a “charm offensive,” revealing an unexpected sense of humour, including that he has been known to “skip and dance.”

Dix is working diligently to get his party elected after three failed attempts against the Gordon Campbell-led Liberals.

Since he was a supporter and friend of former provincial NDP leader Carole James, he did not join some other MLAs in working for her ouster in 2010.

As a result, Dix still finds himself surprised he’s now head of the Opposition. Yet political commentators, such as Palmer, say he has been effective at creating party unity.

Dix’s main goal in the long process leading to what he hopes will be another stint in government is to really get to know the province’s diverse voters, and to not over-stretch his promises.

The polling looks hopeful, with Angus Reid Public Opinion reporting this month that the provincial NDP is 14 percentage points ahead of the B.C. Liberals, with Dix also more popular than Christy Clark.

But Dix says B.C.’s far-flung voters can’t be pigeonholed. Or taken for granted. He cites how some B.C. ridings that vote for strong NDP MLAs can end up backing Conservative federal MPs.

“Politics is more volatile than it’s ever been.”

Personal influences

Even though the interview at The Bamboo Café, in the shadow of Joyce Street SkyTrain station, was set up to be a personal profile of Dix, he started out by explaining why he was hesitant to make himself the focus.

He’s more interested in ideas than personality, especially since he thinks grandiose egos have often hurt the cause of good North American governance.

“I actually think change in politics comes when you make it about other people. But there is a natural tendency, especially in leadership politics, to make it all about you, about the leader. I come reluctantly to that.”

He referred to Christy Clark — a former cabinet minister and talk-show host whom the Liberal party elected to replace Campbell in 2011 — as a “talented political communicator” who has long desired to be premier.

Despite his aversion to focusing on himself, Dix gradually revealed some details about his background.

He talked about getting married five years ago to the woman he first fell for in 1984, Renee Saklikar, a poet and writer.

Dix was struck by Renee when he first saw her behind the NDP booth in the UBC student Union Building.

“The running joke between us,” Dix said, “is that I remember our first meeting and she doesn’t.”

Renee is one of the children of the late Rev. Vasant Saklikar, who, along with his wife, Banu, a former Muslim, were pillars of the New Westminster and NDP communities.

Vasant emigrated from India to Newfoundland in 1959. Raised a Hindu, Vasant, after living in Canada, became a Christian clergyman, eventually serving at Sixth Avenue United Church in New Westminster.

Before he died suddenly of a heart attack in 2002, Vasant had also been a New Westminster school board trustee, started the city’s first food bank and served on regional health boards.

During his long friendship with Renee, Dix, raised an Anglican, was profoundly influenced by Vasant. “He was an extraordinary man. I respect people’s different religious beliefs, yet he saw in Christianity a vision for social justice.”

The Opposition leader also has great admiration for the writing of his wife, a published poet and speaker. And he finds it intriguing he and Renee have careers that may go against their personality types.

Renee, despite spending time alone as a writer, is an extrovert who loves crowds, Dix said, while he’s an introvert who tends to value the inner life.

But he’s learning to enjoy being outgoing. In addition to living in France as a young man and working two decades ago in Ottawa for NDP MP Ian Waddell, Dix travelled all over B.C. in the early 2000s while working for Canadian Parents for French.

During those trips, when he was successfully encouraging more school boards to offer French immersion programs, the fluently bilingual Dix found himself enjoying staying overnight in the homes of diverse parents.

He had the same kind of up-close-and-personal tour a year ago, spending months on the road visiting 65 B.C. cities and towns, building support for his run at the NDP leadership.

He enthusiastically told a story about meeting a group of Montagnard refugees who had escaped persecution in Vietnam. He finds it “exciting” to get to know so many “extraordinary” British Columbians.

In his spare time

In addition to being in the spotlight as party leader, Dix also squeezes in time to read, listen to music, watch TV and follow sports.

Dix used to be active in basketball and running marathons, but doesn’t get as much exercise now as he’d like. Still, he follows “all sports,” including the Canucks, B.C. Lions, Whitecaps and the Tour de France. “I also have opinions about the Rugby Union and the Rugby League.”

Even though he calls himself the ideal “target audience” for B.C. sports teams, and has recently enjoyed going to games at BC Place, he remains unsettled that the Liberals recently spent more than $600 million renovating the downtown Vancouver edifice.

“It’s not a bad thing to have a nice football and soccer stadium, but I’m not convinced it’s a public priority at a time when other services are under pressure,” he said.

When it comes to music, Dix and his wife got a kick out of the fusion band, Delhi 2 Dublin, when they played the Pacific National Exhibition. And even though his father always had classical music playing, Dix also appreciates The Clash and Bruce Springsteen.

He added: “I like lots of TV, good and bad.” While he appreciates “highbrow” HBO series like The Wire and Deadwood, he is also a fan of the old sitcoms, News Radio (“it’s better than Seinfeld”) and Family Ties.

“Eighties and Nineties television is something that serves me well when I play Trivial Pursuit.”

In addition to reading John Grisham mysteries, novelist Leonard Wayne Compton and Canadian poet Sandy Shreve, Dix has been going through Tony Judt’s Ill Fares the Land.

When it comes to social philosophy, he has been influenced by The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone, written by British epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.

The acclaimed 2009 book cites studies in developed countries showing how wide income inequality consistently leads to ill health, criminality, depression, anxiety, obesity and addiction, including among the wealthy.

Dix is convinced that what he sees as the rapid increase in economic inequality in B.C. in the past decade has affected even “the happiness of the rich.”

“That growing inequality between regions, between communities and between people is very negative for our society, so we have work to do.”

Learning from mistakes

Of all the things Dix has done in his work and personal life, he is probably most associated in political memory with his years as chief of staff to Glen Clark, who left political turmoil 13 years ago and has since worked his way up to become president of the $6-billion Jim Pattison Group.

Along with other advisers, Dix was around when Clark and his east Vancouver family home was investigated by the RCMP, charged with corruption, hammered in media headlines and endured a long trial, which eventually exonerated him.

“People are fascinated by Glen’s story. What impressed me the most about him and [his wife] Dale was how good and kind they remained even at the toughest times,” he said. “He’s an extraordinary talent and fine person who kept caring for people, even when he was leaving office.”

Dix is not overly surprised, nor did he appear particularly bothered, that this year’s Liberal attack ads have fixated on the time in the late ’90s when he was found to have falsely backdated a key government memo, with Clark under investigation.

In repeated media interviews, Dix has apologized for it.

“Nobody’s harder on me than myself. You have to take responsibility for yourself. I made a mistake. I understand they’re going to keep trying to bring it up. But if you really take responsibility, you can’t be a moral relativist.”

In addition to the apology, however, Dix felt compelled to add that “the truth is, the political right in this province never rests. They’re always on the attack. We’re more generous.”

With Glen Clark now one of the most powerful businessmen in the province, and often praised for his natural charm, Dix doesn’t compare himself. He’s a much different man.

“My strength as a politician is not necessarily that I’m charismatic, but that I learn.”

Former NDP premiers Mike Harcourt and Glen Clark “did some great things and made some mistakes” in that “longtime-ago” era, he said. “The key is to learn not just from the mistakes, but also from the great things.”

That said, Dix believes there are many limits to the power of provincial governments in an age of international trade agreements and changing prices for copper, natural gas and lumber.

The Liberals, through their attack ads, are trying to “demonize” the 1990s as a bad time for all, Dix said. But he said the ads don’t acknowledge that the B.C. economy has been weaker during the Liberals’ time in office.

Dix maintained the provincial Liberals have run “out of gas” as a government since they came to power in 2001, when Campbell defeated the Ujjal Dosanjh-led NDP.

That said, Dix firmly agrees with some of the economic opinions of former high-level B.C. civil servant Bob Plecas, author of the book, Bill Bennett: A Mandarin’s View.

Like Plecas, Dix says it grossly oversimplifies things to assume that B.C. governments are significantly responsible for either the highs or lows of the provincial economy.

Plecas, a conservative political pundit who served as a deputy minister in the Social Credit government before he was terminated by the NDP and then re-hired by Glen Clark, said in an interview that Dix is smart and intent on creating the impression he is unthreatening.

“He’s much closer to Stephen Harper than anybody else,” said Plecas, 67, comparing Dix’s methodical personality to that of the Conservative prime minister.

Plecas said Dix would move cautiously on only “half a dozen” things should he become premier. That’s because, just as Harper wants to shift the country inexorably to the right, Dix wants to gradually move the province to the left over successive elections.

For his part, Dix said one of the mistakes of the NDP administrations in the 1990s was trying to do “too much” after 15 years in opposition.

“You’ve got to be disciplined and not try to do everything at once. The key is to do the important things, but not too many things. And to do them well.”

The “core fundamentals” for Dix include “an excellent health care system that operates efficiently.” In addition, crucial job-training programs have fallen behind in this province, he said. It is more important than ever to have an educated population if the province is to have an economically resilient future.

The game of life

Despite his ongoing battle with Type-1 diabetes, Dix shows no signs of faltering in either his internal discipline or vision.

He credits Canadian medicare for giving him a chance to make a difference on the big stage, since mostly-free public access to health care, including his daily insulin injections, have helped keep him in the game of politics, and life.

If he had settled in the United States, he said, his chronic “pre-existing condition” could have greatly reduced his career options, since some insurance companies would not have paid for his ongoing medical care.

For the most part, Dix recognizes it is now members of his generation, including 47-year-old Premier Clark, who are coming to the fore in B.C. And he thinks it’s time his generation paid something back.

“My generation, which is currently leading the province in political and other ways, benefited enormously,” he said, from solid government programs in education and social and medical services.

“What has happened in the past number of years has made it harder for the generation behind us. Higher tuition fees. Less access. Less opportunity,” he added.

“The people who have benefited from the development of excellent institutions have to some degree shut the doors behind us.

“Our generation hasn’t done as well as the previous. But it’s not over yet.”

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.